Dialogic dilemmas: Citizen participation in built environment alterations in Malmö, Sweden

Located in southernmost Sweden, Malmö is part of the quickly developing urban landscape that defnes that part of the country, and it is in close proximity to the Danish border. Like many other coastal and border regions around the globe, this Scandinavian region experiences continuous population profle changes related to migration and is also facing rising sea levels; these conditions demand renewal of social and environmental politics. It happens that, in Sweden, the population growth coincides with a growing ofcial interest in actively involving citizens in urban planning and architecture. This ofcial interest is expressed, for instance, in the national document Policy for Designed Living Environments and in the legalization of The Planning and Building Act.1 The idea of a society for all is recurrently used in this national policy to address citizens’ beneft and enjoyment as well as their infuence.2 However, the formats for such infuence are not sufciently developed to fulfll such objectives.The ever-changing contemporary prerequisites for participation promote new types of wishes, needs and plans for dialogue to be theorized and communicated in participatory practices. The chapter concludes by suggesting the need to view dialogic acts not only as communicational transactions between two main contracting parties but also as multi-agentic, enduring and trans-scalar productions of space.